


watching for comets

by ErinNovelist



Series: Stardusted [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 13:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14310159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder—sometimes it just makes you mourn longer.Or: how Shiro never escapes from the Galra, but Keith still finds him anyway.





	watching for comets

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art for Watching for Comets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14309973) by [ErinNovelist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist), [kickingshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickingshoes/pseuds/kickingshoes). 



> Written for the VLD Whisper Bang. Art by the lovely [kickingshoes](http://kickingshoes.tumblr.com/). Come talk and scream with me at [@bladesofmimosa](http://bladesofmimosa.tumblr.com/).

Written for the VLD Whisper Bang. Art by the lovely [kickingshoes](http://kickingshoes.tumblr.com/). Come talk and scream with me at [@bladesofmimosa](http://bladesofmimosa.tumblr.com/).

The laws of the universe are very clear on how stars are formed.

First, there’s small particles, bits of dust and gas that hang heavy in space, like a cloud full of rain just waiting to fall. It’s a battle fought for millions of years, where the cloud wants to dissipate like smoke from a fire, but gravity is fighting to bring it together. Time ticks on, the nebula stuck in a perpetual dance of cold and dark, until something _happens_.

It could be anything really—a comet streaking past, a shockwave from a sun light years away going supernova. The force moves through the cloud, and the bits of gas and dust join together, growing into something bigger, better, _greater_. As the laws of the universe go, the more amount of matter something has, the stronger its gravitational pull will be. 

As more matter falls into the center of the cloud, it grows hotter and denser until it forms a strong core, becoming what’s known as a protostar. Protostars are merely a glimpse of potential, a blink in the span of a lifetime, like a match you keep striking with hope a spark will flare to life. With time, the protostar’s gravity will draw more gas and dust into its center and heat up, reaching the point where its hydrogen atoms begin to fuse to produce helium and energy. 

This is the most critical point in a star’s formation.

It’s where the push of fusion energy is weaker than the pull of gravity, where it’s taking more than the universe can give. The struggling star needs to grow stronger somehow to stabilize itself. Some fall apart before they can make it, but a precious few grow hot enough and take in enough mass, that a bipolar flow of energy occurs as massive jets of gas erupt form the protostar and blast everything else away. 

And that’s it. A star is born.

Back at the Garrison, Keith is a nebula at war with himself, a cold cloud of isolation that fights tooth-and-nail to stay together even when the universe tries to pull him apart. Shiro is his comet, streaking past happenchance, who throws his world into turmoil and changes the very foundation of who he was, all the while showing him who he could be. 

With careful hands and a breadth of time, Shiro painstakingly tames a sixteen-year-old full of fire into something else—something with a purpose. It’s not easy, and Keith fights him at every turn, but eventually, it serves its purpose. Keith becomes a protostar. The younger boy never notices, but Shiro’s known it all along, since the very first moment he met him. Keith is meant to be a star, and Shiro is merely the force destined to make it happen. 

But then Shiro is taken away, disappearing into space, into the hands of the Galra, into a war spanning millennia. 

And Keith, that bright little protostar still struggling to burn, is left alone.

The laws of the universe have always been clear on how are stars are born. It needs more heat, more dust, more gas to survive. If Shiro is the comet that begins him, Keith needs to find something to sustain him.

( _But how can you learn to sustain yourself, when the reason for your existence is gone?)_

 

*

 

It starts something like this: 

Keith doesn’t mean to apply to the Galaxy Garrison.

When he first hears of the school at some informational session held by a recruitment officer, he doesn’t pay much attention to it. As the officer drones on, he buries his face into his astronomy textbook, the Garrison just a passing fancy in the back of his mind. Frankly, Keith is more interested in committing the stars to memory, mapping the skies, and learning about the future mission to Pluto’s moons than to care about some stupid flight school. 

But the more he learns about the universe, the more stars he can name, the longer he stares through the telescope back at the group home—things begin to change. It starts as an itch he can’t quite scratch, something _alive_ squirming beneath his skin, an electric buzz he can’t find an outlet for. At fourteen, most kids are worried about dates, school, and sports. Keith is more focused on the future, wondering what lays beyond grades and school yards, past Child Services and screaming foster siblings. He just wants to know who he is, what he can become, and where life will take him. 

So he puts his name on the application, and when Keith Kogane is fifteen, he’s accepted into the Galaxy Garrison’s flight school. 

His life falls apart from there.

 

*

 

He meets Shiro one night when he sneaks into the simulations at the Garrison. 

Keith is sixteen, full of fire and grit, and he just wants to channel this _itch_ into something else. So far the only thing that seems to help is when he slips into the pilot seat, and his hands meet the controls, and something inside him just _clicks_ , as if he’s always been meant to do this.

Sneaking out of his dormitory in the middle of the night is an appropriate risk. His dad used to say that opportunities that seem too easily set-up are the ones you need to take, because those are the ones that craft you into the person you’re meant to be. Keith’s more than willing to jump on them because he’s always had questions and this might finally give him some answers.

“You’re either gonna succeed or fail with them, Keith,” his dad said under the noon day sun, elbows deep in the engine of a hover bike. “Either way, you’re gonna learn something from it.” 

(Keith misses his dad.) 

When he was seven, his dad disappeared. For years, it had been just the two of them, out in the middle of the Arizona desert, racing down backroads without helmets towards the nearest grocery store in the town over. They’d spend long nights on the back porch, mapping out the sky, and his dad would teach him about satellites, space, and stars. Keith learned how to fix engines and how to pilot an A-1 cruiser from his dad. His life, while still new, was still whole, and he’d been happy. 

Losing all that, along with his dad, made things _hard_. It’s not something he likes to think about.

Flying though? Flying is _easy_.

Slipping into the training deck, he heads for the simulator, casting a quick glance over his shoulder to check the perimeter. The coast is clear, the shadows empty of ghosts, and Keith’s already keying in the codes to start up Simulation 3: Fighter Test. It’s the newest simulation in the first-year curriculum, just introduced in today’s lessons, and Keith can’t wait the next few weeks before getting his hands on the controls and letting loose. 

If he’s born to fly, then he can’t ground himself on purpose. It’s time to spread his wings. 

“Take the risk,” his dad would say, and Keith’s always listened.

He switches the simulation into START mode and engages the boosters, the mock engine rumbling beneath his fingers as he clasps the controls tightly. Feet on the pedals, eyes on the sky, Keith eases back and starts to lift, but then the simulator’s fluorescent lighting switches _on_ and he freezes.

“Isn’t it past your curfew, cadet?” The voice is deep and tinged with amusement. 

Keith shuts his eyes tightly, thinking beyond all hope: _Please don’t be Iverson. Please don’t be Iverson. Please don’t be Iverson._ Slowly, he disengages the engine, turns around in the pilot seat, and comes face-to-face with the man who’d snuck onto the simulator after him.

 Surprise, surprise: it’s actually not Iverson.

“Takashi Shirogane,” the man says as he stretches out a hand to introduce himself. 

Takashi Shirogane is a name he knows. It’s the one students and instructors whisper with holy reverence, caught between awe and jealousy, like Shirogane is the sun and they can’t behold his brilliance for too long. He’s the best pilot the Galaxy Garrison has to offer, someone Keith’s been compared to multiple times if his sim scores have any sustenance. 

But Keith cares about none of that—of the hero worship and rumors. If Keith has learned anything in his life, it’s that legends are stories based on little, and if you’re going to be the stuff of legend, you must have the backbone to support it. Still, Takashi Shirogane is certainly the stuff of legend. He’s all dark hair and bright smiles with gray eyes like a thunderstorm. 

It’s… _breathtaking_. He’s honestly one of the most beautiful men that Keith has ever seen.

“Keith Kogane,” he responds, clasping his hand with shaky fingers. “I just wanted to fly the new simulation, sir.”

“Ah, you’re the one beating my scores.” Shirogane’s brow furrows at his words. “Are you a first year?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that,” Shirogane tells him, though it’s more instinct than purpose. The smile never leaves his face. “I’m a third year, not an officer.” He cocks his head and seems to study the scene at hand. “This is a Fighter Test. You training for fighter class?”

Keith’s hands tighten on the controls. He could care less about what class he trains for—truth is, he just wants to fly. Mutedly though, he nods in hopes that Shirogane might understand and leave him to his own accords. Still, his shoulders tense as he waits for the other man to say or do something that will force him out of the simulator. People have a habit of disappointing him.

“Relax,” Shirogane tells him with a laugh, and _oh_ , it’s soft and warm and breathes life into the cold nebula that is Keith Kogane. “I’m not gonna stop you. I sneak into the simulators all the time. It’s basically a rite of passage at this point.” 

“Oh?” Takashi Shirogane has a tendency to surprise him.

“So you gonna fly?” Shirogane asks. Keith jerks his head in affirmation, and it only makes him smile wider. “Alright, show me what you got.” 

“E-Excuse me?” he stammers out. 

Shirogane shrugs, already slipping into the seat beside him where the navigator usually resides. “You’ve beaten every single one of my scores in the first year simulations, and no one else has ever come close. I want to see what all the fuss is about.” 

Keith narrows his eyes in defiance. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“I think there’s more to you than just good scores,” Shirogane tells him with that same stupid smirk, like he _knows_ Keith—even though that’s not possible. “Most people wouldn’t risk sneaking into the simulator past curfew and lose privileges for the rest of the semester.”

 “You _just_ said everyone does it.”

Shirogane cocks his head, leveling Keith with a sheepish stare. “The people who matter do.” He leans forward and flicks on a few switches, the simulator shaking as it starts up once more. “Look, everyone’s got a reason why they do things—whether it’s sneaking out of their dorms, studying hard, being the best. I want to see yours.”

Keith bites his bottom lip, struck dumb by Shirogane’s words. There’s something about the older man that makes him want to confess in eloquent paragraphs about who he is and why he’s here. “I just want to fly,” is all he can say though, still shuttered in front of this stranger.

Shirogane’s smile is blinding. “Then let’s fly.”

With Shirogane— _call me, Shiro,_ the other cadet later instructs—as his navigator, Keith eases into the pilot position for the second time that night. For the most part, the simulation test is easy, and as the engine thrums beneath his hands, Keith flies like it’s breathing—instinctive. When **SIMULATION: SUCCESS** blinks white across the screen in the dark and tiny cockpit, Shiro lets out a shout of surprise, joy mixed within. It shoots off a spark inside of Keith, fireworks burning their way through his chest and past his heart, settling warm and cozy in the pit of his stomach. 

“That was something else,” Shiro comments, light and airy, like he still can’t believe it.

“You sound surprised.” Keith’s smile won’t leave his face.

 Shiro flashes him an incredulous stare. “You’re… You’re something else,” he says again like it’s the only thing he knows how to.

“…Thanks?”

Shiro’s eyes are still sparkling with excitement as he takes a moment to collect himself. “Wanna go again?” he asks after a short pause.

Keith’s smile turns deadly. “You’re on.” 

 _One more time_ turns into hours, turns into many nights and many days, turns into months and years. It’s not just piloting sessions after dark, where the legend and the best thrive without prying eyes. Before he knows it, Shiro is _everywhere_ in his life—the training room, the library, the cafeteria, the dorms. Shiro becomes a permanent fixture in Keith’s life, and suddenly things are different, and Keith learns that this is what it’s like to be someone and have someone. 

And so it goes, until they are so intertwined with each other’s lives that Keith has forgotten what being alone is like. They say that this is what happens when you put two and two together, when many things combine and give rise to new ones. Just like comets can birth meteor showers, and many stars make up constellations—Keith and Shiro are no different.

Keith is a cold nebula, and Shiro is the comet that gives him a reason. That’s how the story goes.

Until it’s over.

  

*

  

Keith holds onto one memory in particular. It plays it over and over like an old film strip—washed out, decayed, but still tangible. It’s the night before the Kerberos mission when he sat on the edge of a rooftop with his best friend next to him. Huddled in a worn, heavy jacket, Shiro sits against the brick border and sighs softly as a wind blows past. 

“You’re going to do so much while I’m gone,” Shiro says, eyes on the sky but dreams far ahead. “You’re going to lead your own team. You’re going to teach some stupid cadets how to stay in line. You’re going to beat every last one of my simulation scores.” 

Keith only hums in understanding, tilting his head back against the bricks. “And you’re going to be the first person to reach the outer edges of the solar system.”

“One of,” Shiro corrects.

“Cockpit’s at the front of the ship,” Keith says without thought as the wind blows harder, causing him to shiver next to Shiro. “You’ll be the first person to cross the point of no return, you know. Takashi Shirogane—first man in Pluto’s region.” 

“With Matt Holt a few seconds later.”

“No one ever remembers the second though,” Keith quips with a wry smile, pulling a low chuckle from his friend.

Feeling Keith shake against him, Shiro wraps a tight arm around the younger man and pulls him into a tight sideways embrace, hand fisting the leather of Keith’s jacket. Drowning in the scent of Shiro—cologne, engine oil, and home—Keith buries his face in the soft fabric of Shiro’s collar, eyes fixating on the glittering gray of Shiro’s kind eyes rather than the sparkling stars above. 

(It’s a much better view.) 

“Whatever happens,” Shiro says in a whisper, so frail and fragile that even the wind could break it. “I just want you to know how proud I am of you. You’re meant to do great things, Keith.” 

Keith wants to respond, wants to press that _nothing will happen_ , but risk is risk and things _can_ happen. But Shiro is the best pilot at the Galaxy Garrison, so Keith knows he has nothing to worry about. Choosing to leave both to their silent musings, Keith relaxes against Shiro, falling into the warm and quiet strength beside him, and tries to commit the moment to memory. 

(He feels the ghost of Shiro’s arms around him for years to come.)

  

*

 

If you ask Keith years from now what the **hardest, most painful** point in his life was, he’d tell you that it was losing Shiro.

It’s a lie though. 

Learning how to be alone again—that was _always_ the hardest.

 

*

 

Shiro is a type of purgatory for Keith. 

Thoughts of him, even the happy ones, burn bitter in his head and heart, spaces full of sadness and sweet repose, where he cherishes the time he had with Shiro but mourns the time he lost. It’s not the most ideal situation, but it’s the one he’s settled with. It’s the only one he can bear.

He goes about his day trekking through the desert, the soles of his feet hot through his boots, wiping sweat from his furrowed brow as he tries to find answers in ancient cliff drawings. Finding meaning in Anasazi mystery, a perpetual question no one’s been able to puzzle through, probably isn’t the best place to concentrate his time an energy, but it’s better than crumbling in on himself until the Earth turns him back to dust. 

He treks over cliff sides and sketches the carvings on cave walls into a worn notebook, interspersing it all with his musings in his year-long exile to the desert.

 _It’s killing me when you’re away,_ in the margins of the magnetic readings surrounding the set of caves along the southwest border.

 _Why did you leave? I don’t know, and I just wanna know why_ , etched between the penciled lines of a lion.

 _Tell my dad I said hi. Ask him why he left,_ beneath the map of the Arizona desert.  

 _I miss you_ , by the energy source recordings. 

 _I can’t do this without you_ , Keith writes during the early twilight when the sun sinks low on the horizon, and the moon shines as it tries to chase it. A sliver of silver light creeps in through the window, falling over the tear-spotted pages of his notebook.

The black ink of _“without you”_ spreads.

In collapsed stars, matter has been pushed to a limit—to the point that the internal pressure produced by the energy in the center of stars is no longer important. All nuclear fuel has been exhausted. Keith imagines his grief is like a collapsing star: where he has nothing more to give and feels absolutely nothing. Stars are the perfect balance of pressure and gravity, and once gravity overpowers it, the star falls in on itself.

Keith can’t find his reason to keep burning, so the star falls apart. The theory’s simple to explain and hard to put into practice. Above all else, Keith Kogane is a survivor and knows what strength it takes to keep going when you have _nothing_.

Learning to be alone is hard. It’s just how absences work. Little loves that have gone won’t always create the same turmoil as losing bigger ones. Just like a star, the bigger the absence, the more violent the collapse.

He lets out a breath, knots in his spine loosening, and his arms fall to his side. “I miss you,” he says to the moon.

Even though gravity feels heavier, the star doesn’t collapse. Loneliness, while empty, is a force as well. It keeps the gravity at bay. 

Keith keeps burning.

 

*

 

How they get into space doesn’t matter, aside from the fact that they _do._

Finding the Lions, becoming Paladins, Voltron—it’s all inevitable, like stars and gravity. They were always meant to come together.

In the beginning, it’s difficult. Three months on the frontlines of a millennia-long war with the Galra and Voltron still hasn’t found the cohesion they need to succeed. Their victories are few and far between, with losses outweighing their gains in the grand scheme of things, and it’s mainly because of the bonds between the Lions and their pilots. Even though Red sings beneath his hands, and he can feel the way their souls burn together, Keith is sure things aren’t as they should be, and soon they’ll down in flames.

It starts when Allura can’t connect with the Black Lion, not in the way Voltron needs. Even though she’s been flying it since this whole adventure began, eventually the purple barrier becomes a permanent fixture in the hanger. Failure taints the water like blood, and sharks are swimming amongst the team. It’s been weeks since the last time they formed Voltron, and everyone is at a loss at how to proceed.

The bonds between them are connected like nerves under their skin, a sputtering live wire fighting to spark, until it pushes them, one by one, to slip into the Black Lion during the rare moments it will allow entrance and sit down in the pilot chair, hoping that it will come to life and help them save the universe. The lion remains cold and desolate, like a distant nebula, a vision of great power with no real purpose.

Keith never tries though, too afraid to leave Red. For the first time in a long while, since Takashi Shirogane and the Galaxy Garrison, he feels _right_ when he sits in the cockpit of the Red Lion. He doesn’t want to lose that, not again—he _can’t_. But just like he feels their souls are meant to burn together, fire plus fire just ends in a bigger explosion, with him choking on ashes, and the world going up in smoke around them.  

As the laws of the universe dictate, Keith is meant to be a star, not a supernova.

It’s the middle of the night, and he wakes up from a nightmare, shoulders heaving forward as he gasps for air for his burning lungs. Sweat-tangled hair is plastered against his forehead, eyes blown wide as he struggles to come to grips with reality. Keith isn’t sure what woke him, or what horrors lurk behind closed lids, but all he can hear is the echoing roar of a lion in his head that he _knows_ doesn’t belong to Red.

He bolts to the Black Lion’s hangar without a second thought.

“Keith?” Lance calls out as he rushes down the hallway, soft footsteps echoing behind him. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Black,” he says but doesn’t elaborate. There’s really no need to at this point because it turns out that everyone heard the roar, but it only resonated with Keith. He can still feel it echoing inside him, jarring his cold stiff bones.

The rest of the team forms a half circle around the Black Lion as Keith approaches, waiting with baited breath to see what will happen. It’s a short moment of silence, the span of a few heartbeats, as Keith sits in the dark cockpit with his hands on the controls, clenched around them with tight fists. He closes his eyes, finally _listening_ to the roar with his whole self.

“Why can’t you just accept Allura?” he asks the Black Lion. “She’s a leader. She’s meant to do this. Why can’t she be enough?”

But the Black Lion doesn’t respond. There’s a nudge to the back of Keith’s mind, warm and familiar, and he knows without a doubt that that it’s Red. His lion is pushing him on, but he isn’t ready to let go.

(Because as much as Keith is fire and needs to burn, he’s also a star, and stars…

Well… stars have always been meant for the sky.)

“I can’t lead them,” he gasps out, trying to gain some semblance of control over the lion. “Not like Allura can, not like S—” The words catch his throat, past tense and painful. _Not like Shiro would_. 

Not like Shiro would. Not like Shiro thought he could. The thought leaves him soft-eyed and sad, and his grip on the controls loosens lightly. Closing his eyes, Keith leans back in the pilot seat of the Black Lion and tries to remember Shiro from years before, sitting on a rooftop and telling him about all the great things Keith was destined to do. 

_You’ll be a great leader someday._

_You’ll be one of the best pilots in the galaxy._

_You’re meant to do great things_.

The words come back like thunder, loud and reverberating. He sits there and tries his best to regulate his breathing and calm his racing heartbeat. Thoughts of Shiro always leave him teetering on the edge, where the air feels thinner and everything’s shallow. While it’s undeniable that time has passed, it’s demanding and unyielding, and Keith has not come to grips with losing Shiro

You learn to go on. You don’t learn to forget.

There’s a soft rumble as the world begins to glow purple, startling him from his silent reverie. “ _Please_ no.” He closes his eyes tight, steadying his thoughts, and begs the Black Lion to reconsider. 

 _I can’t lead them,_ Keith swears.

 _You can learn,_ the Black Lion says.

No matter the argument that Keith poses, the Black Lion refuses to listen. Instead, it simply throws its head back and lets out a roar, shaking the very foundations of the Castle. Keith holds the controls tighter.

 _Whatever happens, I just want you to know how proud I am of you,_ Shiro had told him.

 _Am I making you proud now?_ Keith is too afraid to ask, and a selfish part of him is happy that Shiro isn’t here to answer.

  

*

 

Keith wasn’t lying. He doesn’t know how to lead. 

He’s already trying to tie a knot with frayed strings between himself and the rest of the Paladins, and being thrown into a harsh leadership role when he doesn’t know how to steer doesn’t help things. The team can’t follow someone who’s aimless. Like most things in his life though, Keith simply grits his teeth and shoulders the burden, trekking across the war-torn universe until he finds his destination.

Everything happens so fast that it leaves his spinning, and he can’t catch his breath.

They fight the Galra and discover the hidden rebellion amidst enemy forces after rescuing Lieutenant Thace, who was to be excuted after helping Voltron escape its first incident with Zarkon. They form an alliance with the Blades of Marmora, and Keith learns the truth about his blood, which nearly tears the team apart. Allura refuses to work under a Galra leader after the last one slaughtered her people and destroyed her home.

 

(“I can’t trust you! _I will never trust you!_ I can’t trust a _Galra_!”

“If you won’t trust me, at least _follow_ me. We’re in a war and barely keeping our heads above the water. If you won’t work with me, then we die! We _all_ die!”)

 

Luckily, Allura learns to work around her preconceived notions regarding Galra blood and accepts Keith as the leader of Voltron (before Keith has learned to accept it himself). It goes to show how much nature versus nurture can impact people, especially out here in the cold dead of space. Genetics simply tell the story of who you are, but not who you are meant to be. Blood is not the tell-all be-all. Because Keith was born in fire and still can’t burn on his own. And his family is not relations but relationships—found, not blood. 

 But there’s also some truth to it—because Galra are born and raised in war and know how to lose everything. All Keith has ever known is loss. The correlation is too strong to ignore.

Still, though, the Galra also know how to prevail, which is instinctive to Keith at this point. Voltron fights Zarkon and his mech, wins, and have nearly reclaimed a third of the universe before Keith no longer questions his seat as a pilot for the Black Lion. It’s taken the better part of a year for him to learn to lead, full of mistakes and losses, but also victories and gains. All he needed was time to slow down and think, learn the controls before he guns it full-throttle.

 

( _Patience yields focus._ It’s one of the little things he still holds onto.)

 

Losing himself in Voltron, in flying the Black Lion to lead a rebellion through the universe against the Galra, swallowing down the questions he has for the Blades: these are things that push Keith on. It helps soothe the aching hole in his chest, the space where someone _else_ once was—someone important, someone who mattered—someone named Takashi Shirogane.

 It’s been years, really, if he thinks about it. The Kerberos mission left when Keith was eighteen, and he was nineteen when he rode into space with a bunch of Garrison cadets, and now he’s twenty and piloting the most dangerous weapon in the universe. In truth, Shiro’s been lost to him for more time than he’s known him. It doesn’t matter though, and that’s the problem.

 Stars only happen because comets put them into motion, and even when the comet has long passed, the stars don’t forget them. You can never forget the reason for your existence.

 

*

 

It all changes in the blink of an eye.

 

*

  

The night is quiet, and it scares Keith because he’s nearly forgotten how haunting silence can be. 

Silence used to be a constant in his life, amidst the tremulous times of losing his father and changing homes. He used to find comfort in his, just him and stillness. For Keith, silence in the thing that hangs heavy in the air like a hand on his shoulder to steer him straight. At one time, it was the only thing he could rely on. 

But then came Shiro, and suddenly Keith wasn’t alone anymore. The silence was filled with noise and laughter, and everything _changed_. Smiles leave lines on his face, there’s a spark in his eyes that won’t die, and he walks on air as easily as he flies through it. But then things change again, only for the worse. Shiro has always been someone important to him, mainly because he changed Keith’s life, and when he finally disappears like everyone else and silence comes back… Keith isn’t sure how to function.

Now it’s a year later, and he’s in space, where there is no sound. Suddenly, the silence is deafening. It’s like how living in a desert has made him forget the rain, and now he can’t remember it until he’s standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. As he struggles to adjust to the new system, of being a leader and fighting a war, he finds his world to be a dry wasteland, and even the support of his friends and team can’t quench his desire for more. He’s gone without silence for so long that now it’s more of a foe than a friend. 

It’s hopeless. In space, the silence is haunting, the shadows are ghosts, and he’s living a nightmare that he can’t wake up from.

More than anything, he misses Shiro, and it _hurts_ to know he’ll never come back.

The feeling, one he thought he’d long ago buried deep until it was just a hollow ache he carries like a scar, has made a resurgence with Pidge’s increased intensity in finding her family. Searching liberated Galra bases for any sort of intel, she risks life and limb for traces of her father and brother. 

As a leader, Keith shouldn’t kill his teammate’s hope. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that Matt and Commander Holt are dead.

As a leader, though, Keith knows that chasing ghosts only leads to more pain. He spent over a year in the desert doing just that for the only family he had left ( _because there has to be a chance that Shiro’s still alive_!), and he can’t watch Pidge lose herself on the same aimless mission.

“You nearly died,” he tells her one night on the observation deck when all is quiet save for the _click-clacking_ as Pidge types away on her keyboard. 

The _click-clacking_ stops. “It’s worth it,” she says in response.

His eyes trail over her small form, huddled in that ratty green and white hoodie she’s had for as long as he’s known her. Bruises blossom around her neck from the choke-hold the Galra commander had her in just a few hours prior. Keith had held her in his arms after the battle, watched her struggle for breath as tears streamed down her smoke-stained face, heard those awful wracking coughs and whimpers. 

Afterwards, she refused a healing pod, too desperate to scavenge the data she’d pulled from the base’s systems. The whole incident isn’t something he’d like to repeat.

“Is it really?” he asks her because someone has to watch out for her well-being if she won’t take the duty seriously. _It’s what Shiro would do_ , he tells himself.

Pidge stares at him for a few moments, cocking her head in confusion. “What are you trying to say?”

Keith sighs and rubs a hand over his tired face. “I just think that maybe you should concentrate on other things for a little while: prioritize things.”

 “My family _is_ a priority,” Pidge snaps back, heated as her cheeks burn a bright red.

“I’m not saying that we’re going to stop looking for your family,” he stammers out in response, words slurring at that edge sets in. He tries to picture Shiro that first time he cornered Keith as a young cadet in the simulator, when Keith was a hot-head and easily panicked. “I’m just saying that your family—”

“Of course I won’t stop looking for my family, and you have no say in this matter.” Pidge crosses her arms against her chest and simply stares at him, daring him to say so.

But he won’t say what he’s thinking. He won’t tell her that her family is dead—like Shiro. 

“Besides, what do you know about _family?_ ” Pidge’s voice is sharp, words harsh. “You don’t have one!”

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? At the end of the day, everyone Keith has ever called family always ends up leaving him: just like the mother he never knew, the father who disappeared, and Shiro who died. 

His hands clench into tight fists at his side. “I—” 

He can’t form a proper response as Pidge’s computer beeps out a warning, having finished its scan. She glares at him at him with a heated warning, glasses glinting in the glow of her screen, which makes her all the more terrifying to combat at this point in time. 

“I’ve got a family to find,” Pidge says. “I don’t need you to stop me.”

And how Keith wishes he could agree.

He wishes he had a family to find too.

 

*

 

They find Matt Holt the next week. 

Everything falls apart from there.


End file.
